To Love and to Cherish
by Ve1vet R0se
Summary: AU. After a rough night Sasuke, Neji, Naruto and Shikamaru find out in their drunken state they'd done something maybe they shouldn't have done. They accidentally placed orders for mail order brides.


To love and to cherish…

Men they had **never** met.

* * *

**N**aruto glanced nervously at his friend, "Your mad?"

Mad was an understatement, he wasn't mad he was _pissed_. Right now Sasuke had Naruto cowering in the corner of the room, threatening to break his neck, "Yes I'm mad!" he raged. "Hell, I'm going to break your neck, and then- and then-" he was too angry to continue.

The blonde laughed nervously once more, "If it makes you feel better I'm in the same situation, so we can suffer together!" A sharp kitchen knife found itself lodged in the wall; almost right neck to Naruto's ear a moment later.

"Get… OUT!" Sasuke roared as he watched his friend scurry out of the apartment, hearing his door slam shut and the one next-door open. He really did hate living next door to his so-called 'best friend'.

Heaving a heavy sigh he kicked over the wastebasket and sat down at the kitchen table. He rested his head in his hands, wanting to scream at someone. No matter what the situation Naruto always seemed to find a way to get both of them in over their heads in trouble; but this, this had gone too far.

Sasuke Uchiha was a married man. To a person he hadn't met.

* * *

"Sakura-chan!"

"Ino-chan!" both girls looked surprised to see each other. Yet again, anything was possible at this point. They sat in awkward silence, Sakura taking a seat as the train lurched forward.

"Sakura-chan…" the blonde started, looking at her friend with a sad gaze. "Why did you sign up? This business is a big gamble, he may be kind or he may be a psycho." This wasn't helping much, but she needed to know.

The pink-haired girl remained silent for a moment, "I don't know, because…" she stopped herself, this topic had been rather touchy lately. "You were leaving… and you might not come back Ino-chan! I don't want that!" she blurted out, taking a deep breath before continuing, "You're my best friend! If your gone then…"

"Sakura…" the blonde started softly, "Your throwing your life away. For me. That's not right." She stood up, taking the girl's arm, "We're still near a town, if you get off now you can take the next train h-"

"No!" Sakura jerked away, surprising Ino, "I'm not going to let you throw your life away either Ino!" she cried out, forgetting formalities. "We're in this together!"

Knowing there was absolutely no way of talking Sakura out of this Ino sighed and sat back down. "Did you get your sheet yet?"

"What sheet?" she asked, smoothing out her dress as she looked curiously at Ino.

"The sheet that says who your husband is silly!" Ino said playfully, pulling out a folded piece of paper. "Don't worry, you'll get it before we arrive. I got some guy named…"

* * *

"Shikamaru!" Sasuke raged as he stormed down the hall of the apartment complex. He almost knocked the door down as he kicked it, hard.

"Whaaaaaat?" said person grumbled, opening the door almost too hung over to walk. "It's so bothersome having you-"

"That doesn't matter right now! Were you in on this too!" the raven-haired man practically screamed.

"In. On. What?"

"THIS!" Sasuke roared, pushing an advertisement and another a few other sheets of paper in his hands. He crossed his arms over his chest as Shikamaru quickly read over the paper.

"Mail-order brides? I'm not that desperate Sas…"

"No! Look at the other sheets." He said, trying to calm down.

Shikamaru flipped the flyer over so he could read the other sheets. At first he glanced up at Sasuke with a strange look. Then he almost chuckled as he looked at the second and third sheet. Then it wasn't funny anymore, the color drained from Shikamaru's face. "T-This… this is a joke right?"

"Why in the hell would I bother to come down here at six am to play a prank on you Nara!"

"Alright- alright. Then what happened… this can't be real…"

The two sat in Shikamaru's kitchen, Sasuke explaining the whole story. At least everything Naruto had said. "So wait. We were over here." Shikamaru started, pointing down to refer to his apartment. "And we were wasted…"

"Yup."

"Then we managed to get downtown, order brides, and come back here?"

"No… Naruto dragged you and I down town. Though we were drunk so we didn't mean to let him. And then Lee found us and took us back here." Sasuke explained.

"Wait, how did we manage to get downtown in the first place?"

"Naruto doesn't seem to be able to remember." Sasuke grumbled, "Though he can stay sober pretty damn long, I wondered if maybe he did this to get back at us or something?"

"Well this happened to Neji too, and he doesn't have anything against Neji." Shikamaru sighed, rubbing his temples. "At least this kinda helps you out. Didn't Kaguya say she wanted an heir? You don't' get your share of the inheritance if ya haven't got a kid. How troublesome…" referring to Sasuke's mother.

"Don't remind me." Sasuke grumbled, slumping forward onto the table. It was true, the Uchiha's weren't pleased at all that their son, now twenty-five, still wasn't married. Even Itachi had settled down and already had two kids.

"When do they arrive?" Shikamaru sighed once more, folding his hands. "Hope I didn't get some bitc-"

"Tomorrow afternoon. They're taking a train."

"Tomorrow! Why tomorrow?" Shikamaru slammed his fists down on the table, surprised and angered.

"I guess our orders were last minute. They have a huge waiting list so they can bring over as many girls as they need and just assign husbands to them. Sickening…" he hissed, "We were wasted… who knows how we managed to skip right to the front of the waiting list?" Sasuke's eyes wandered to his pocket where he dug out his wallet, wondering if they had paid some ridiculous price to jump the waiting list.

"And there's no backing out?"

"Unfortunately…" he did continue, "We can just get a divorce…"

"Divorces have to be approved by the Hokage." Shikamaru dryly. "How the hell did Naruto ever get smart enough to win the election for Hokage?"

"I honestly don't' know… I'm gonna go get some rest… and by a bouquet or something… Hey Shikamaru…"

"Yes?"

"How do you prepare an apartment for a wife you've never met?"

"… We are **so** screwed…"

* * *

"Sakura-chan!" the blonde practically shrieked like a schoolgirl as she shook her friends shoulder.

"Five more minutes…" Sakura mumbled as she rolled over onto her side. It had been a rough night, sleeping on the train that is. She really didn't need Ino waking her up after only a few hours of sleep.

"No Sakura-chan! We're here-!"

"Nani!" Sakura jolted upright as she stared out the window, "It's…"

"…Beautiful isn't it?" an unfamiliar voice half giggled half said from the doorway. Both girls snapped their heads around, staring wide-eyed at a girl with dark brown hair in two buns. "I'm sorry, my compartment is so lonely. Would you mind if I joined you?"

Both girls shook their heads as they slid over to let the new girl sit down, almost instantly one more girl poked her head in through the door. "I'm s-sorry, but t-the conductor wanted me to…" the girl started shyly until Ino interrupted her.

"Slow down… En-un-ci-ate!" Ino said slowly as the girl blushed from embarrassed.

There was a moment of awkward silence, as the girl seemed to gather up her courage, "The conductor wanted me to inform you that we will be arriving in less than an hour. The trolley will be by with a little snack for breakfast." She said rather slowly, squinting her eyes shut the whole time.

All three girls stared at her, until finally the brunette spoke up, "What's your name?"

"Hinata."

* * *

So the four men found themselves standing on the platform, all looking extremely embarrassed. Why? They were all holding bouquets. Pink ones, purple ones, big one's and small one's. Though now they we're only thinking about their new wives. What were they like? Pretty, nice, smart, dumb, mean? How would they know?

Though the ones that seemed to be least excited about all this were Neji and Sasuke. Neji was usually above drinking, but now his pride was mortally wounded _and_ he was married. Sasuke, this may have been a good thing because the clan demanded an heir from his pronto. Though he kind of wished he had at least been able to known what she even looked like before she arrived. He didn't even know how he was going to explain this to the clan. They expected some CEO's daughter or someone of importance. Not a mail-order bride.

Naruto seemed fairly happy about this; he'd ordered the biggest bouquet he could find. Within reason of course, he could barely afford to pay for all the ramen he bought let alone a monster-sized bouquet of the finest flowers. Plus he'd bought a stuffed bear to go with it. Shikamaru paid a ten year old girl to get him a bouquet, he wouldn't be caught flower shopping. Neji got a normal sized bouquet of flowers from a man outside the train station. Sasuke got a small bouquet with flowers that didn't have much of a scent.

Their hearts pounded in their chest as the faint sound of a train far down the tracks. All four of them gulped as it came into view. "Well, this is it gentlemen." Naruto said in a surprisingly mature voice. The other three turned and stared at him, "For dramatic effect yanno?"

The turned back around and grunted at him, irritated.

The train whished past them and slowly came to a stop. Suddenly they all had cold feet. Naruto spun around and began walking off, but Sasuke and Shikamaru seized him by the arms and dragged him back over. "You screwed us all by doing this so you'll suffer too-!" Sasuke growled.

They all snapped to attention as a pair of girls strolled past them. Now the trick was to find out who the brides were and who the regular passengers were. They all leaned forward and began whispering things like, 'how do we tell?' 'I don't know we don't have pictures of them' 'What the hell do we do now?'

They suddenly what appeared to be a light shining from heaven came down. A beautiful red haired girl stepped off the train. She pulled an arm up in front of her, looking completely angelic. She also wore a veil that was pushed back so it laid on top her hair. Their jaws all dropped, even Neji's.

Though she didn't pay them any mind. Instead she strolled right past them and was greeted by a pudgy, middle-aged man behind them, holding a sign that obviously read her name. You could practically see Naruto's heart breaking. "Why didn't we make signs?" Shikamaru half growled, half asked. He only received shrugs from the others.

More girls wearing veils hopped off the train, they wandered around the platform until they found their new husbands. Then their numbers began to thin out, leaving only a small group of them to loiter near the middle. One blonde girl, with her hair in a high ponytail looked their direction. She smiled and trotted over, holding out a sheet of paper.

She walked up to Sasuke and grinned, "Black hair, black eyes. You must be Shikamaru!" Ino chirped, pointing to the section on her sheet that had Shikamaru's physical description. Sasuke shook his head and jabbed a thumb in Shikamaru's direction. It was obvious Ino was disappointed; "Oh…" was all she said as she walked towards Shikamaru and made a very lady-like bow.

Three other girls followed. TenTen looked at her sheet then to Neji, whose cheeks were stained pink. Apparently the girls had some free time before they had arrived. They cut the veil and made it into two separate pieces. Then they set it into her hair so it was like a bao style, which was very pretty on her. "Hyuuga-san?" she chirped, and Neji nodded practically thrusting the bouquet at her. Ino gave TenTen a happy but envious look.

Next Hinata stepped forward. It had been hard setting the veil in her hair, but when they did manage to get it in she looked stunning. "Nar-Naruto?" she asked shyly, drawing and arm up to her chest.

_Boy she talks cute…_ Naruto blushed as he handed her the large bouquet and bear, "F-For you-!" he stuttered while Hinata giggled and said her thanks.

Finally Sakura shyly approached and tapped Sasuke on the shoulder. At first glance she appeared even shyer than Hinata. Her cheeks were stained such a dark pink that it put her hair to shame. She kept her eyes down which made her tiny frame seem even smaller. "Uchiha-san?" she asked quietly, stealing glances at his face, waiting for a reaction.

Sasuke nodded slowly, feeling guilty and responsible at the same time. Her fate had been sealed when she was ordered. Then again if Naruto hadn't gotten them so drunk she may have been assigned to another husband… One that might have been cruel to her. _I-I'll just have to be good to her..._ He thought, wondering how the others must feel right about now.

* * *

My first fic where I _didn't_ make up the characters! Whee! Sorry if I'm not as good as keeping them in character, but it's my first time. This story was inspired by a lot of things, the Uchiha Restoration, Love Doesn't have a Price, etcetera. Though I've never seen a plot where the girls are mail-order brides! Haha, anyways. Review and tell me what ya think. Please? Next chapter will be added soon if all goes well. –**Ve1**


End file.
